Signifying Europe
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SIGNIFYING ISBN 978-1-84150-521-3 00 € UROPE 9 781841 505213 JOHAN FORNÄS intellect | www.intellectbooks.com SignifyingWhy We Make Europe Art at why it is taught Johan Fornäs by Richard Hickman Ê/ÕÌÌi ^ciZaaZXi7g^hida!J@8]^XV\d!JH6 Published with support from the Sven and Dagmar Salén Foundation and the Publication Committee of Södertörn University in Sweden. First published in the UK in 2012 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK First published in the USA in 2012 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA This ebook is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Copy-editor: Macmillan Cover design: Holly Rose Typesetting: John Teehan Cover image includes a detail of Captain Euro, reproduced here with the kind permission of Nicolas De Santis. ISBN (ePDF): 978-1-84150-657-9 ISBN (Hardback): 978-1-84150-480-3 ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-84150-521-3 For Hillevi Signifying Europe iv Contents List of Illustrations ix Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Name and Myth 5 What’s in a name — and in a myth? 5 Introducing and interpreting the name and myth of Europe 8 Comparisons 17 Phoenix, Prometheus and post-World War II resurrection 20 Captain Euro 27 Conclusions 37 Chapter 2: Identifying Symbols 43 Meanings 44 Interpretations 46 Polysemies 48 Identities 50 Identifiers 52 Keys 56 Approaching European symbols 59 Signifying Europe Chapter 3: Symbols of a Union 61 The emergence of Europe 64 Introducing the EU symbols 76 Chapter 4: Day 85 What’s in a day? 85 Introducing Europe Day 88 Interpreting Europe Day 90 Comparisons and commentary 92 Conclusions 99 Chapter 5: Motto 103 What’s in a motto? 103 Introducing the European motto 104 Interpreting the European motto 106 Comparisons and commentary 108 Conclusions 112 Chapter 6: Flag 115 What’s in a flag? 115 Introducing the European flag 117 Interpreting the European flag 120 Comparisons and commentary 128 Conclusions 145 vi Chapter 7: Anthem 149 What’s in an anthem? 149 Introducing the European anthem 153 Interpreting Beethoven’s Ode to Joy 158 Interpreting the European anthem 171 Comparisons 181 Conclusions 201 Chapter 8: Currency 205 What’s in a currency? 205 Introducing the euro 210 Interpreting the common euro designs 215 Interpreting the national euro coin designs 223 Comparisons 243 Conclusions 248 Chapter 9: Projecting Europe 251 Additional symbolic realms 252 Four facets 256 In conclusion 262 Notes 267 References 299 List of Figure Sources 321 Index 325 Signifying Europe viii List of Figures and Illustrations With the exception of Figures 7.1–7.5, all figures appear in the colour section located at the back of this book. 0.1 David Černý: Entropa in the European Council building in Brussels, 2009 1.1 Europa and the Bull, Greek vase painting, c. 480 bc 1.2 Europa and Zeus Transformed into a Bull, terracotta figurine from Boeotia, c. 460 bc 1.3 Rembrandt van Rijn: The Abduction of Europa, 1632 1.4 Carl Milles: Europa and the Bull, Halmstad, Sweden, 1935 1.5 Nikos and Pandelis Sotiriadis: The Abduction of Europa, sculpture outside the European Parliament building in Strasbourg, 2005 1.6 Phoenix 1.7 Prometheus Brings Fire to Mankind, Heinrich Friedrich Füger, 1817 1.8 Murdoch’s Chinese Phoenix Television logo 1.9 Captain Euro together with his partner Europa and Lupo the wolf 1.10 Captain Euro with Twelve Stars team members 3.1 Satellite image of Europe 3.2 Polish map of Europe’s countries 3.3 European Union member states, 2007 3.4 Council of Europe member states, 2009 ix Signifying Europe 4.1 Medelålders plus (‘Middle Aged Plus’), by Sven-Bertil Bärnarp, Dagens Nyheter, 2010 6.1 The EU flag 6.2 Pietro Berrettini da Cortona’s fresco in the Grand Salon of Palazzo Barberini in Rome, 1639 6.3 Giovanni Battista Tiepolo: The Immaculate Conception, 1767–69 6.4 ‘Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal’ celebrating the apparition of St Mary on Rue du Bac in Paris, 1830 6.5 The US ‘Betsy Ross flag’, 1777–95 6.6 Greek philosopher Anaximander’s circular cosmology, c. 610 bc–c. 546 bc 6.7 Anaximander’s world map 6.8 Kosovo flag 6.9 Turkey flag 6.10 Flag of the People’s Republic of China 6.11 Pan-African flag of the UNIA Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League 6.12 African Union Flag used until 2010 6.13 African Union Flag used after 30 January 2010 6.14 Carolingian Triquetra-cross 6.15 Original Paneuropean Union flag 6.16 Paneuropean Union flag in its recent version incorporating the EU stars 6.17 European Movement flag 6.18 Flag of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine (CCNR) 6.19 Flag of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) 6.20 Flag of the Western European Union (WEU) 6.21 1950s logo of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) 6.22 1990s logo of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) 6.23 The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) logo in Istanbul, 2004 x List of Figures and Illustrations 6.24 Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) logo 6.25 Champions League logo 6.26 EU barcode 6.27 Picobelleuropa, 2005 6.28 Maarten Vanden Eynde’s 2006 flag inEurope 2006–2014, 2005 6.29 Gay European flag used in Gay Pride events since 2005 6.30 Vlad Nancă: I Do Not Know What Union I Want to Belong to Anymore, 2003 6.31 Nemania Cvijanović: The Sweetest Dream, 2005 6.32 David Černý: Entropa, Brussels, 2009 7.1 The lyrics of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony 7.2 Graphic overview of the Fourth Movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony 7.3 The European anthem melody 7.4 A theme from Georg Friedrich Handel’s Coronation Anthem Zadok the Priest, the basis for the UEFA Champions League anthem 7.5 The Marc-Antoine Charpentier theme used as anthem for the European Broadcasting Union EBU and its Eurovision 7.6 Christer Sjögren, 2008 7.7 InCulto, 2010 8.1 Euro banknotes, 2002 8.2 Euro coins from the original twelve EMU member states and associated countries, 2002 8.3 New Euro coins obverse, 2007 8.4 Euro coins (reverse) from the five new member states, 2007–11 8.5 Commemorative €2 coins (reverses), 2007 and 2009 8.6 Nauru’s $10 coin, 2002 8.7 US $5 banknote since 2006, Chinese 5 yuan banknote since 1999, Russian 5 ruble banknote since 1998 and South African 50 rand banknote since 1999 xi Signifying Europe xii Introduction In January 2009, David Černý’s sculpture Entropa, commissioned to mark the Czech presidency of the Council of the European Union, was unveiled in the Brussels headquarters (Figure 0.1). The work consists of satirical versions of national stereotypes, mounted in a framework looking like plastic model kits. For instance, Černý depicted the Netherlands as flooded, with only minarets visible above the water surface; France with a big ‘strike’ sign; and Romania as a Dracula theme park. A heated debate ensued, as it turned out that Černý had faked other artists that were supposed to have contributed to the work, and also since Bulgaria got their depiction covered over as it had the form of a standing toilet, which was considered insulting. The artist declared a wish to provoke official European Union-speak, but also to express Europe’s capacity of critical self-reflection. Through a playful analysis of national stereotypes, the intention was to expose the way Europeans tend to focus on differences between countries in terms of everyday habits: to ‘show how difficult and fragmented Europe as a whole can seem’ and to ‘point at the difficulty of communication’.1 The sculpture indicates that there is—and perhaps can be—no European unity. The name Entropa plays with the term ‘entropy’—a thermodynamic term often used metaphorically to signify an unstoppably increasing level of randomness and disorder in a system. The artwork depicts each nation as a closed unity, effectively cut off from all others, unable to fuse into a unified whole,emptying the European Union (EU) project of any hope for success. This is certainly in line with some apparent failures of the integration process. However, there is also a more problematic undertext in Černý’s work: it seems to imply that European nations are well-defined and closed units—at least infinitely more so than Europe as a whole. This naturalisation of national identity is untenable. European nations are all ‘imagined communities’ (Benedict Anderson) that with shifting success have been consolidated by economic and political institutions. So Europe is not alone in being a sociocultural construction with strong imaginary elements, and more of a project than an existing empirical fact. Such imaginary communities are not necessarily mere illusions. Communities need not be natural or eternal in order to exist and have 1 Signifying Europe an effect in the world. Ideas and discourses have a kind of ‘reality effect’ that makes people act differently and thus make the imagined communities come alive. Politicians, philosophers or scholars have through the centuries drafted a European project, but they have not been alone. Various social strata have oriented themselves towards a real and imagined Europe, drawing up its contours in various sets of practices.